Efforts to measure any given personality construct can fail as a result of inadequacies in formulating or defining the trait to be measured and weaknesses in the assessment methods employed. For instance a psychologist who is trying to test an individual’s personality, may like to quantify what has been measured and interpret the same qualitatively. For example, he may try to see what is the degree of depression in the individual through a personality test and then interpret the same. This would involve the theoretical system which he susbscribes to and thus if it is psychoanalytical he might say the depression is due to repressed wishes that have not been fulfilled and depression is a way of manifesting those unfulfilled desires and wishes. To give another example, a psychologist may like to specify quantitatively the degree to which individuals are submissive in social and competitive situations. The effectiveness will depend on the particular theory of submissiveness the individual brings to bear on the problem. As for the actual procedures, the psychologist will select a test that would measure submissiveness or the psychologist may devise a test by herself to measure the submissiveness. Once a test has been devised it is put under many rigorous testing so as to standardize the same and the psychologist would try to demonstrate how the test exactly measures the submissiveness construct. Each of these tasks must be considered carefully in evaluating efforts to measure personality
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